Game Experience and User Interface

Issue #395 serves as an experimental visual review of the history of UI (user interface) in digital games, under the editorial direction of game developer and AI researcher Youichirou Miyake.

Since the dawn of the computer gaming age in the 1970s, digital gaming has evolved across different hardware: arcade machines, PCs, video game consoles, hand-held consoles, and now smartphones. The industry has become massive, with the trial and error of countless developers and creators propelling gamers to find their way through complex aggregate game information—which players experience as stories, characters, and sounds. Games have evolved beyond the category of mere entertainment into a form of media that has captured hearts across the globe. In this issue, Miyake suggests that the evolution of the design of game screens has a relationship to information organization in graphic design and to the user interface (UI) or user experience (UX) methods of application design.

Contents include an overview of the history and structure of digital games, with coverage of UI screen design for real-time and turn-based games. Other chapters discuss the evolution from 2D to 3D and the use of the mini-map, as well as map design in games; and the evolution after 3D: the rise of open world and smartphone games. The last major section covers reality-based games, integrating real streets with the digital world. UI screen design for arcade games is also discussed.

Games discussed in this issue include Dungeons & Dragons, Wizardry, SORCERIAN, FINAL FANTASY Ⅳ, Detroit: Become Human, Tokyo Xanadu, Ys: Foliage Ocean in Celceta, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, METAL GEAR 2 SOLID SNAKE / METAL GEAR SOLID, Super Mario World / Super Mario 64, FINAL FANTASY VI / FINAL FANTASY VII, Etrian Odyssey, Grand Theft Auto III, Ghost of Tsushima, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Fate/Grand Order, Toro and Friends: Onsen Town, Uma Musume Pretty Derby, Ingress, and Pokémon Go.

Includes interviews with Nihon Falcom Corporation; BeXide; and Niantic.

The issue also presents a contribution by Tetsuya Goto ("Vol. 2 Millenials Part 2"), designed by Sulki & Min, and an essay by Shinbo Minami, "Why is Mizumaru-san “so” popular?"

Designed by Kensaku Kato, Megumi Moriya (LABORATORIES)

Published by Seibundo Shinkosha Co., Ltd., 2021

Bilingual, in Japanese and English (not all content translated)

Softcover, 184 pages, full color, 8.9 × 11.75 inches